Dryer for clothes are home appliances that supply hot wind into a drying drum to remove moisture absorbed into clothes in a state where objects to be dried are put into the rotating drum. Hot wind supplied into a drum may be generated by using electrical resistance heat or combustion heat using a gas fuel. Then, the hot wind may be supplied into the drying drum by using a blower fan.
Also, dryers for clothes may be classified into forced convection dryers and air vented dryers according to a hot air supply method. That is, the forced convection dryers may be dryers in which hot air supplied into a drying drum is repeatedly heated and cooled while circulating the inside of the dryer, and the air vented dryers may be dryers in which hot air supplied into a drying drum is discharged from the drying drum to the outside.
During the drying of clothes, various flexible and rigid foreign substances contained in the clothes may be separated out of the clothes to drop down onto the bottom of the drying drum, as well as lint attached to clothes may be separated and thus floated in air discharged from a drying drum.
Thus, when the flexible and rigid foreign substances are introduced into a discharge passage for the air discharged from the drying drum, the foreign substances may damage a drying fan or increase in load of the fan to deteriorate drying performance. Also, the lint generated during the drying process may be introduced into a combustion device or electric component through a gap between the drying drum and a cabinet to cause fire in the dryer.
Particularly, during the drying, vibration and noises may be generated by the rigid foreign substances that drop down onto the bottom of the drying drum. Here, the flexible foreign substances may include hairs, rubber bands, threads, snack packs, fabrics, and the like. The rigid foreign substance may include cotton swabs, toothpicks, hairpins, underwear wires, safety pins, small accessories, buttons, and the like. In the dryer according to the related art, when foreign substances are put into the dryer, a foreign substance dropping groove has to be separately defined in a front end of a blower.
Also, when the foreign substance dropping groove is defined, a structure for taking and throw out the foreign substances accumulated in the foreign substance dropping groove is needed.
In addition, although the heavy foreign substances drop down and then are collected into the foreign substance dropping groove, light foreign substances such as cotton swabs may not drop into the foreign substance dropping groove, but be introduced into the blower to damage the blower or deteriorate blowing performance.
Also, when the foreign substances are deposited in the foreign substance dropping groove, the lint may be caught by the deposited foreign substances and thus deposited together with the foreign substances to significantly increase air flow resistance.